Interesting Facts About the Stars Quiz

Answer: Being described as the little sister of Charlie McCarthy

Charlie McCarthy's was Edgar Bergen's equally famous wise-cracking dummy, whose head was based on a red-headed imp of a newsboy and whose spine was a broom handle. He was famous for quips, such as the following, in his ongoing "feud" with actor W.C. Fields:

W.C.Fields: "Quiet, wormwood, or I'll whittle you into a venetian blind."

Charlie: "Ooh, that makes me shutter!"

Candice Bergen, born 1946, is an American actress who has won five Emmy Awards and two Golden Globes, all of which were gleaned for her long running role as the top investigative journalist, Murphy Brown, in the sitcom television series (1988-1998) of the same name. Candice has also 35 film roles, and 25 other television roles and appearances to her credit. Her entertainment career started as a young child when she first began appearing with her father on his shows, where, comically so, she began to rather resent the fact that she was frequently introduced as Charlie McCarthy's younger sister.

Answer: A soccer player

Somehow the idea of the very portly Pavarotti trying to run after a soccer ball is really quite amusing. Luciano Pavarotti was born in Italy in 1935 and passed away in that country in 2007, after a lifetime of sharing his glorious tenor voice with the world. He initially made his name in the many operatic tenor roles he took on, but was also comfortable enough with his self concept that he switched over easily to singing popular middle of the roads songs as well whenever he felt so inclined. Of his own music he sold over 100 million records while he lived, and probably many more since, and the first "Three Tenors" album he cut with Jose Carreras and Placido Domingo in 1990 went on to be the biggest selling classical music album of all time when it was released.

When younger, and before he began his classical singing career, Pavarotti toyed with the notion of becoming a farmer as well. Lucky cows if he sang to them while milking. That would have led to some production. He finally settled on becoming a teacher for two years before he began his classical singing studies at the age of nineteen, during which, in order to pay for his fees, he also worked as an insurance salesman. Oh dear, that's even funnier. In 1972 during a performance of Donizetti's "La Fille du Regiment", in which his signature aria called for him to hit nine high Cs (which he easily achieved), this saw Pavarotti's name (and the seventeen curtain calls he received) well and truly established. He was known for the rest of his life as the King of the High Cs. His voice was natural, exquisite, heartbreakingly beautiful, and he shared that wonderful gift with the entire world. Thank goodness this extraordinarily talented man didn't achieve his earlier dream of becoming a soccer player. You can only kick a ball so far. That voice was limitless.

Answer: Working for US army intelligence

Eddie Albert was an American actor of film, stage and television who lived from 1906 until 2005. Born Edward Albert Heimberger, he dropped the use of his surname as a young man because he was tired of people pronouncing it as Hamburger. After graduating from university with a major in business, that was the career he planned to follow. The Stock Market crash of 1929, however, put an end to those ambitions and he found himself out of work instead. For the next few years he worked various odd jobs as a singer, a trapeze artist, and insurance salesman. He began his film career in the 1930s and, over the years that followed, appeared in some 95 movies and guest starred in 90 different television shows. We know him best perhaps for his television role as Oliver Wendell Douglas in the series "Green Acres" (1965-1971) in which he plays a top Manhattan attorney who drags his glamorous reluctant wife away from a pampered city life to live on a ramshackle farm in the country in order to fulfil his dream of becoming a farmer.

Before his film career took off with a considerable bang, Eddie was working with a circus down in Mexico as a clown and high wire artist, but that was just a cover for his real work of spying on, and photographing, German U-boats in the Mexican harbours. For that and his later work in the US Coast Guard (during which he rescued 47 Marines stranded on an atoll in the Gilbert Island while under heavy fire), he was awarded the Bronze Star with Combat "V". Eddie was married to his wife Margo from 1945 until her death in 1985, a marriage incidentally that saw him blacklisted for several years because she - not him - was known to have left wing leanings. From the 1970s on, Eddie became involved in social and environmental issues. He founded the Eddie Albert World Trees Foundation, spoke on behalf of many other environmental issues to save the planet (this earned him the nickname the "ecological Paul Revere") and was an envoy and consultant for causes such as Meals for Millions and World Hunger. He also spoke out against pollution of all kinds, founded City Children's Farms, and promoted organic gardening.

In addition to all that, Eddie Albert, a man with a face that made you smile, and a heart that encompassed the entire world, was also a director on the U.S. Council on Refugees. This amazing man was a star in every sense of the word.

Answer: Peter Lorre

Peter Lorre (1904-1964), who was born in Austria-Hungary, began his acting career as young man initially on stage, before moving into film in Germany in his late twenties. After a short time spent in England (he fled there after Hitler came to power) he moved to the united States. Coupled with his emotionless face, bulging eyes and quiet menacing voice, he was bound to be snapped up into films with dark themes of murder, crime and horror, and when he eventually was placed in those roles by various studios, he took fear to a whole new level. Tired of playing the villain by the late thirties however, particularly in the rather comical ongoing series of films featuring the Japanese detective and spy, Mr Moto, he showed his displeasure by attending a 1939 luncheon with Japanese officials - wearing a badge stating "Boycott Japanese goods".

In 1977, in a bizarre and frightening connection to real life, Peter Lorre's only child, Catharine was once stopped by serial killers, Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, who were posing as officers of the law. These two ghastly cousins confessed later to police that they had intended to abduct and murder the young woman, but when they found out that she was Peter's daughter, they let her go. Who knows why? Perhaps they were afraid Peter's ghost would return to find them and exact some terrible revenge.

Answer: Boris Karloff

Boris Karloff, who appeared in almost 160 films and an unknown number of stage productions during his long career, was born in England as William Pratt in England in 1887, and died in that country in 1969. Over his long career in the entertainment business, during which he made the role of Frankenstein his own, William often worked digging ditches (or were they graves?) in between his smaller earlier roles. It was at this time that he adopted the name Boris Karloff. He did this because he didn't want to embarrass his many siblings back home in England, his brothers in particular, all of whom worked for the British Foreign Service. They considered him the black sheep of the family because he had chosen acting as a career. Boris, who was the youngest of the family, had been reared by his older siblings following the death of his mother, so their opinion really mattered to him.

It was the role of Frankenstein that took Boris to the heights of fame, and he quite cheerfully made the most of that character, and those he played in many other horror films. The shoes Frankenstein had to wear were his only trouble. Each one weighed some eleven pounds and were also built up by four inches. Boris was born with a stutter, a lisp and was quite bow-legged as a child, so walking in those shoes was quite a challenge for him. One comical tale about that famous character he played so often occurred during the birth of his only child. Boris was in the middle of shooting another Frankenstein film at the time and rushed from the movie set to the hospital while still in full costume, quite possibly scaring some of the staff and patients out of their wits.

One very endearing story about this famous old actor was that, every year for the last 30 years of his life, Boris Karloff dressed up as Santa Claus to hand out gifts to physically disabled children at a Home in Baltimore. See, he wasn't so frightening after all.

Answer: The pie in the face

Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, Gilbert "Bronco Billy" Anderson (1880-1971) was an actor, writer, director and producer whose lasting claim to fame was introducing the world to the eponymous cowboy hero in western movies, a stock character who has appeared in most westerns ever since. Anderson's entertainment career began in New York City in the late 1890s where he had recurring acts in Vaudeville shows, and it was during this period of his life that he met American film pioneer, Edwin Porter, who hired him in the dual roles of actor and writer for the early movies. From here, Anderson branched out into directing his own written films over the next decade, and, such was his success in this field, he founded Essanay Studios in 1907, one of America's first successful movie organisations.

Over the course of his career, Anderson acted in over 300 short films, many of which he wrote and directed as well, and with the greater number having a western theme. This led to his going down in the annals of film history as the Silver Screen's first cowboy star, Broncho Billy. Because of his work in the director's chair in other films, Anderson also claims the title of directing the first movie to portray the good old pie in the face gag. This appears in the 1909 "Mr Flip", which tells the story of a Don Juan type fellow moving from location to location across town, and flirting outrageously with every woman her meets along the way. It starred the famous cross-eyed actor, Ben Turpin, and he is the victim of assorted punishments handed out by the outraged women when they wake up to his intentions. The pie in the face, delivered by an irate waitress, is the climax of the movie - and that gag has reappeared in various comedies ever since as well. Two firsts in a lifetime of achievement. Not too bad, Billy. Broncho Billy Anderson received an Honorary Academy Award in 1958 for his contribution, as a motion picture pioneer, to the "development of motion pictures as entertainment".

Answer: All of the above

One of the reasons Ben Chapman (1928-2008) was selected for the role of Gill-man, in the 1954 movie "Creature from the Black Lagoon" was because of his height (6 foot, 5 inches), which was tall enough to make the creature even more alarming. Ben was one of the two actors who played that role. He did on the on-land scenes, while another actor (Ricou Browning) played the underwater scenes. Ben in particular found the role exhausting because of the suit he had to wear. Made of thick foam rubber, and difficult to put on and remove, it was also impossible for Ban to sit while wearing it. So for the 14 hours of every day he wore it during shooting, he had to stand. It was also impossibly hot, so during takes, he was often found standing in the lake at the back of the studio, or having the crew hose him down.

In addition to this, the extra thick head piece he had to wear as part of the costume made it very difficult for him to see where he was going, and he almost gave the female lead (Julia Adams) concussion when he accidentally scraped her head along the wall as he abducted her to take to his lair. There were two follow up movies of Gill-man and his woes, but Ben definitely did not take part in those. His bladder probably couldn't take the strain. He always good-naturedly obliged any fans who recognised him however, with time for a friendly chat and always willing to give out autographs. His wife of 25 years didn't always appreciate the fact that she was commonly referred to as Mrs Creature, but endured it cheerfully. When Ben died in 2008, his ashes were scattered off Waikiki in Honolulu. What a shame they didn't end up in the lagoon.

Answer: Riding his horse through the mess hall

Jim Backus (1913-1989) was an American born actor of radio, television and film. He is perhaps best known for two roles in particular - that of the voice of the very funny near-sighted cartoon character, Mr Magoo; and for his role as Thurston Howell III in the television TV series "Gilligan's Island" about a group of seven people on a day's boat trip who are marooned on a deserted island after being shipwrecked. Theoretically deserted at any rate. Various guests and other unlikely island occupants popped in periodically to make the episodes more interesting. In that show, Thurston is a Harvard graduate, a Republican, and a one time billionaire whose losses on the stock market during the Great Depression have seen him slump to the position of a mere multi-millionaire. He has some of the funniest lines in that sitcom, many of which Backus deviated from the script and ad-libbed instead.

Once you heard the voice of Jim Backus, it was instantly recognisable in whatever other role he played in his long career, and none more so than the lovable, practically blind Mr Magoo who refuses to admit he has any kind of visual problem at all, resulting in his ending up in the most comical of situations from which he always manages to escape. Such was Mr Magoo's popularity that in the 1952 film "Don't bother to Knock" in which Backus was acting alongside the lovely Marilyn Monroe, she once sent an urgent message for him to meet her in her dressing room. Slightly puzzled, and perhaps just a TINY bit hopeful, when he duly arrived at that destination, a delighted Marilyn begged him to do Mr Magoo for her - so he did.

As a young man, Jim Backus was perhaps destined for an entirely different career than the one he eventually followed, for, after attending high school in East Cleveland, he was a student at the Kentucky Military Institute, until his unfortunate expulsion - for riding a horse through the mess hall. Perhaps he should have done a Mr Magoo, peered myopically at the stern authorities, and said he actually thought he was in the stables.

Answer: John Barrymore

John Sidney Barrymore (1882-1942) is several quizzes rather than one single question, so much will be missed here. His life was far more fascinating and tumultuous than any role he ever played on stage or in film. Considered the greatest American tragic actor of all time, this almost seemed to be a case of art imitating life. Because of the continued absence of his acting parents from home during his childhood, his mother's early death and his father's descent into madness (as a result of syphilis), Barrymore reacted violently. He was expelled from several schools for misbehaviour, drinking and visiting a brothel, and that early drinking would be his undoing right throughout his life. In short, he was a hopeless alcoholic, but yet still managed to combine his dependency on alcohol with a brilliant acting career - even though he constantly appeared on stage quite heavily intoxicated. He was infamous for his many affairs, including one with the equally infamous Evelyn Nesbitt. In fact he once tried to assist Evelyn to have an abortion - disguised as an appendectomy - quite disregarding the fact that her medical records revealed she had already had several other "appendectomies".

Known as "The Great Profile" in assorted news items, Barrymore noted that the other side of his face looked like a fried egg, but it didn't worry him unduly. His stage portrayal of Shakespeare's "Hamlet", a role with which he would always be associated, would have Shakespeare rolling in his grave along with Yorick's skull. He and the director blithely remover 1,250 lines of dialogue from the play! Furthermore, instead of playing the character as the troubled and indecisive young man Shakespeare had created, Barrymore described Hamlet as a sickly half-wit and turned him into a virile, lusty young man who was a great fencer instead! Oh dear. The ironic thing about this was that Shakespeare's Hamlet, with all its tragedy, was ultimately closer to Barrymore's own life than the epee wielding, testosterone ridden character he chose to portray. John Barrymore, so handsome, so gifted, so graceful, ended his life as a drunken and broke has-been who couldn't remember his lines and whom most studios wouldn't employ, a parody of a once bright and glowing shooting star. His death, on May 29, 1942, was the result of from cirrhosis of the liver, kidney failure and pneumonia.

"Good night, sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest".

Answer: Francis was actually female

Francis the talking mule was the star of seven successful comedies filmed in the 1950s. Created as a short dialogue between a 2nd Lieutenant and an army mule by US Army Captain David Stern III one night when he had little to do, the idea of a talking mule persisted in his mind until he decided to put his characters down into a successful 1946 book, simple entitled "Francis". He published these works under the name Peter Stirling, the name of the human character in the later films, and played in the first six movies by Donald O'Connor. Mickey Rooney took over the role in the seventh and last film.

The character of Francis is a rather sardonic very experienced army mule who is a thorn in the side of the young, rather green soldier he takes under his hoof - and the assorted situations he guides the young man through, all the while refusing to communicate with anyone but Peter, who, when he states that Francis can talk, is frequently tested for insanity. The voice provided for Francis is a very deep drawl, courtesy of actor Chill Wills, and Francis is very competent, brave and in full control of every situation as every masculine hero should be. Francis however was actually Molly, chosen to play the part because she was so easy to handle and never the least bit stubborn. She was purchased from a couple in Missouri for only $350, but went on to make a fortune for her new owners. Trained by the same person who also trained Mr Ed, the talking horse, he got Molly to talk by placing a thread in her mouth which she tried to remove by moving her lips and tongue. There is no record of what eventually became of Francis/Molly after the seventh film was made, which is rather insulting considering all she gave to the entertainment business - AND without a word of acknowledgement to boot. Hopefully, she lived out a peaceful and happy life on a farm somewhere, until she went to that great mule train in the sky.